The HRT F1 team’s new F112 challenger has finally been declared fit to compete after it resat and passed all of the FIA’s mandatory crash tests. The team is now in a race against time to get a complete chassis (and enough spare parts) down to Barcelona in time to compete at the third and final pre-season test, starting on March 1.

Theoretically, its attendance should be a formality, but this is reliant on the team having paid all of its contractors on time, and these parties having performed all of the construction work.

The team has never had a new car ready to run in time for a pre-season test, and the few test sessions that it has been able to attend have been with older-spec chassis’.

The team had hoped to run its F112 at last week’s second pre-season test at the Circuit de Catalunya, but its first failure of three FIA crash tests put it behind schedule as it was forced to strengthen the components that failed.